Welcome to “Toy Soldiers for Old Gits” or what we call TSOG! This is a place where three actually four regular guys henceforth known as the Old Gits will ramble on about all scales of Toy Soldiers, various War Game Rules, record their AAR’s and comment on all manner of other war gaming stuff in general. Should be fun for every war gamer on the Inter Web...hmmm do people still say that? Anyway read on and enjoy!

Tuesday, 23 April 2019

Song of Drums and Shakos AAR #3

Well
nothing beats ending a four day long weekend than a sausage sizzle followed by
a game of Song of Drums and Shakos! After feasting we played the Convoy Escort
scenario from the More Song of Drums and Shakos rule book.

Bashi Bazouks engaging a Russian Mule Train Escort...

I
made a couple of changes to the scenario as written firstly I placed the wagon
with a mule train simply because I did not have a suitable wagon and also our
play area was 1 metre square slightly bigger than the 90cm square one recommended in
the rules.

Below our
forces, please note I created my own irregular Ottomans as the ones listed in the Rules
Army Lists were of pretty poor Quality (logical for irregulars) and did not have the special attributes that
make Bashi Bazouks scream out at me. The change to higher Quality would allow the game to
run quicker (also reduced the number of Turks as their value increased
accordingly) and the included attributes were to add flavour and try to simulate
what I read about Bashi Bazouk soldiers. Also note some of my Ottoman figures are stand ins from a latter period but besides weapons they fitted in perfectly!

June
1810 and Imperial Russian forces crossed the Danube into northern Bulgaria. In
August part of this force attempted to capture the town of Razgrad to protect
the flank of the besiegers of the fortified town of Shumen. There the Ottomans counter-attacked and in the confused fighting Turkish light troops
infiltrated the Russian front line and engaged in numerous vigorous skirmishes with rear echelon Russian units...

Captain
Popoff of the Imperial Russian Staff was pleased with his new assignment, he was in command of a small escort
detachment bringing vital supplies up from the rear for the Army Headquarters. Everything was going smoothly for his detachment until they heard
shouting in Turkish...

The AAR....

The Russians deployed their NCO and four
Grenadiers around the mule train and began advancing the mule train first and
then the Grenadiers but before they got far the initiative turned over and not
wasting anytime the Ottomans sprung their Ambush!

Eight musket armed Bashi Bazouks and their
Leader advanced on the right of the mule train while five more armed with
Jezails and their Leader emerged to the convoys left! The Musket armed men led
by Baler Arslan advanced and opened fire felling a Russian instantly. Meanwhile
Berli Yildiz led his men forward to block the convoys advance. Captain Popoff
quickly moved his remaining infantry to face the closer Turks forming a line
between them and the mules.

Turn two and Arslan’s men wailed as they
charged the Russian before them, killing one, knocking another down and pushing
a third back. The other Turks advanced and fired their Jazails with little
affect. Popoff’s Russians fought back and held the Turks which in turn panicked
a couple of them. At this point the mule train failed to activate leaving it
stationary and in danger.

Third turn and while the musket armed Ottomans
retired to the woods the others advanced in front of the mule train and shot
their driver down resulting in it remaining still again and now a Russian
fighter would be required to led it! Popoff now moved men from the right of the
road to the left to block this new threat as the other Turks withdrew.

Turn four and while a Russian Grenadier took
charge of the mule train (but with no second action to move it so it didn’t
move for the third turn in a row) and both sides exchanged fire causing further
losses, both were already approaching 50% casualties!

In the fifth turn the mule train finally
started moving again forcing the foot soldiers of both sides off the road
before it and at this point the Ottomans hit the Russians hard; Yildiz at short
range killed the Grenadier leading the mules with his pistol while one of his
men shot another Russian infantryman this pushed the Russians to over 50%
losses!

The morale checks saw a further two more Russian run from the play area
(including Popoff) and it was all over for them.

An Ottoman victory!

A great game and it was very close and both sides
were simultaneously just shy of 50% losses (the Russian stubborn national trait
gave them some help here). That the Ottomans had the first chance to strike on
turn five and then made good use it saw them take the win. The forces were surprisingly well
balanced even though in this scenario the defenders with 400 points of ‘men’ outnumbered the
attackers with 330! We’ll be playing Song of Drums and Shakos again next fortnight!